Stolen Time
by sleepingswan
Summary: It took him three weeks to convince himself he didn't have much of a choice in the matter of putting Emma back on the path she should be. It took him only a second after reading what August had to show him that every moment he spent with Emma was nothing but borrowed time. Stolen time.


_I can't get enough, _

_So I have to do the right thing, _

_And give you back. _

'_Cause I'm done stealing._

**STOLEN TIME**

In spite of his phone being in his jacket pocket, the last number in his call history flashed accusingly before his wide opened eyes.

_911._

Neal knew it was the right thing to do. He knew it because he had spent the last three weeks telling himself over and over again that he should do it, and he repeated the lie enough times to make it ring true to him. But he could still taste bile as he walked towards the place where Emma would be, where the cops would find her with the stolen watch on her wrist, where she would taste her last minutes of freedom.

It wasn't a suspicious place, hidden in the shadows where all kinds of trouble could happen. It was a parking lot they used to go to drink cheap wine in plastic cups on weekends when they got tired of watching bad horror movies. Their names were written in a parking space somewhere – she wrote it using a brick spall as pen while he talked about all the kids they would have once they got to Tallahassee.

He found himself a semi hidden place to stay, near the trees that made that parking lot so nice on warmer days. Neal wanted to be there when they came, he wanted to see her one last time before leaving her alone for good. Whispering "_You selfish asshole_" to himself, Neal shifted on the spot, watching his feet take turns hitting the ground.

Emma was punctual. He had told the cops the "miscreant" would be at the parking lot around 4pm, and she was there indeed, waiting for him to show up so they could catch a movie before dinner. She was right in front of him. If he took a few steps to the left, Emma would see him and for a moment, he considered doing so. He could jump out of the bush he was hiding in, laugh at her scared face and race her to the movies. They could run and get away, the cops would never find her, she would never go to jail, they would never be apart.

But he knew he couldn't. Emma had a destiny to fulfill and it wasn't his place to mess with it. If anything, his father had taught him that what is written will happen, one way or another.

Trying to swallow past the lump in his throat, Neal focused on his girl – "_Emma_", he corrected himself, remembering he didn't have the right to call her like that anymore. Not when he was sending her to jail. Guilt made his stomach sink and his mouth filled with a bitter taste than he wasn't expecting. "_It's the right thing to do. I'm doing it for her. She needs to do what she is supposed to do. It's the right thing to do_," he repeated the lie over and over again, looking at Emma for what it seemed like would be the very last time.

Emma had her hair down, golden waves shining under the afternoon sunlight. She was wearing the squared glasses he had grown so fond of and the crimson red lipstick he would more often than not smear once he got to kiss her. But it was her outfit that caught his attention. He was certain he had never seen her wearing it before – a white three-quarters-sleeve blouse and a baggy light blue skirt. She looked lovely, stunning even. And regret began to fill his heart with such speed it let his head spinning.

He took a step to the left. Then another. When he was two steps away from catching Emma's eyes, grabbing her hand and running like hell, he heard it. "Put your hands where I can see them and turn around!" The cops were there.

Suddenly, Neal felt time moving very slowly. He saw every emotion that crossed Emma's face. Surprise, confusion, comprehension, apprehension, fear, – and the one that he just knew would haunt him until the last of his days – pain. As Emma spun around, hands up over her head, he realized he had broken her, damaged her heart beyond repair.

He was the only one who knew, the only one who could have turned her in. As the policeman cuffed her, spilling her rights that he was pretty sure she wasn't really listening to, Neal didn't have to see her face to know she was falling apart.

This moment would weigh down his soul for years to no end. And it never mattered how much he tried to remember things clearly, his memories of Emma going into the police cruiser were always hazy, a loud thud pounding in his ears as his blood rushed urging him to do _something_.

But Neal just stood still, frozen in the spot. Unable to move. Unable to think straight. Unable to feel as his short nails dug into his palm, drawing blood. Unable to feel anything but shame.

* * *

Three weeks.

Neal got twenty one days with Emma after August wrote down and showed him the truth he was trying to erase from his own mind.

It took him three weeks to convince himself he didn't have much of a choice in the matter of putting Emma back on the path she should be. It took him only a second after reading what August had to show him that every moment he spent with Emma was nothing but borrowed time.

_Stolen_ time.

All of these twenty one days were something Neal didn't have the right to have.

The good night and good morning kisses. The lingering touches. The hugs from behind she gave him while he was trying to not burn their breakfast. The cheap wine and grilled cheese they'd have while watching terrible movies on mute and creating entire different dialogs to. The tickling fights that turned into make out sessions. Moving furniture around. Eating Chinese food while talking about their days. Making plans for the following weeks, months, years.

Neal watched as Emma smiled more often than ever, as she let her walls tumble down and opened up to him, telling him how safe she felt when she was with him. It killed her to know he would break her heart sooner than she could imagine.

Every laugh, every kiss, every touch. It was all stolen moments.

* * *

Neal had tried to lose himself.

He went to every bar he'd find in front of him. He went to church every day. He stayed indoors listening to psychedelic music for days. He moved from Portland to Seattle to Los Angeles to New York to Vancouver. He tried to read his way into another land, he tried drink himself to oblivion, he tried to make new friends, to make new lovers.

It didn't work.

His agony had reached a point where he just _had_ to know about Emma.

August said he hoped Neal was not trying to reach out. He didn't answer that. He couldn't answer that. Because he _hadn't_ tried to reach out for Emma and every time he remember what he had done, his heart tried to hammer its way out of his chest and his stomach sank to the ground.

It had been two months since Neal set Emma up, since he sent her to jail, since he damaged her in a way he promised he never would. And every night before falling into a restless sleep, he would imagine Emma curling up in a jail bed as she used to when they were living in the bug and she couldn't find a comfortable position.

But what kept him from sleep wasn't how uncomfortable Emma was in a bed, they had slept in worse places. What haunted his every awaken moment was how much he had hurt her. And while laying in a somewhat comfortable bed, under sheets and blankets that still smelled like her, Neal couldn't help but imagine what Emma was thinking. He imagined how she would lay her head down to sleep, listening to metal sounds that always fill jails at night, and would think that he never loved her, he never cared about her, that she was nothing but someone to have some fun with and then take the blame for his work.

What made him sick to his stomach was the thought that Emma may not know he loved her.

He never meant for it to be like this. No, they were supposed to find Tallahassee with each other.

A small voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that if he knew Emma was okay, he could move on. If he knew that Emma wasn't hurt, maybe he could move on. If Emma had a shot at finding the happiness he couldn't give her, then he could move on.

August agreed to meet him near the industrial park in a excluded part of Vancouver. Neal wished he could say it was far away from his house, because that part of the city was terrible, but he had found a place to live and a low-paying job in one of the factories. But for the purposes of the meeting, it was best that he wasn't too far away from his bedroom and alcohol stash.

And before anything, Neal had to know if Emma was okay.

"Is she?" his voice was shaking, and it cracked in the end. If August noticed it, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he replied to Neal's questions in the vague way that sometimes made people want to punch him in the face.

_She will be. She got eleven months._ Emma will be incarcerated for almost a year in a place tinier than their bug. And _Pinocchio_ had the nerves to say she would be okay.

Neal snapped, "I should be doing that time." It wasn't the first or the second time he thought about it. He was the one who needed to be kept away from the world, not her. Not Emma. Not that carefree soul that he was pretty sure he had managed to scar for life.

"No. We went over this. It's good."

How was that good?

In what alternative reality sending Emma to jail was anything remotely near _good_?

He should have turned himself in. And in the second that thought crossed his mind, the hours long conversation with August came back screaming at him. _If you went to jail, she would wait for you. You couldn't do this. You need to set her free, set her in the path she was meant to be on. You need to promise me you will steer clear. If you do that, she can have a good life. She can do what she is meant to do. Do you understand me, Neal?_

They promised to take care of each other.

He was supposed to be there for her, for better or for worse. He would listen to her perfect voice reading a book out loud and say her food was amazing when it was barely edible, he would tell her how adorable she looked in her dresses and hold her hair when she was having morning sickness.

He was meant to be there for her, and now he couldn't.

"If I can't be there for her, man, you got to promise me that you will be." Neal didn't take promises lightly, and he wished that neither did August. Because that boy that was with Emma in her first and worst days of her life was his only hope of moving on.

"Then you should do something for me."

Taking a crumbled package from his jacket pocket, Neal opened and handed the three items to August.

_Money._

August convinced him that Emma was better off without him the day he fenced the watches. In the three following weeks he still was with Emma, they could have spent a bunch of it, but he somehow convinced Emma it would raise less suspicions if they just put it in a bank account for a while – under her name, since the police weren't searching for her.

Twenty thousand dollars in a savings account for a year would earn her a good amount to get her life started. It was the least he could do for her.

So he handed August a brochure with all information she needed to know to get the money once she got out of jail.

August said that she didn't need money for what was ahead of her, but _fuck it_, she would need money to get through life until it was time for her to break the curse. And he was doomed if he let Emma get out of jail with nothing but a broken heart.

_Car keys. With the swan keychain he had stolen for her._

Neal had to go through hell, but he got a clean VIN number for the bug, so it was legit. If he ever hoped to move on from Emma, he could not have their yellow bug, their tiny little home in his possession. That car had been the beginning of it all – their meeting, their falling in love, their finding their home in each other.

If he hadn't stolen that car and hid in the backseat, waiting for the night to fall before getting away, he would have never met Emma.

If she had gone for any other car in that ally instead of that yellow tiny thing, she would have never met Neal – and maybe it would have been a lot better to her, but he couldn't think about it now.

Emma would have a better use for it than he would. Even if she sold it, it was best for both of them that she was the one to keep it.

He didn't want to admit it not even to himself, let alone anyone else. But before he could catch his tongue, he was spilling out, "It'll feel like I'm there with her, you know?"

Because that was all he wanted her to know – that he never left her alone, that he never stopped thinking about her and trying to protect her. Even if it was in a kind of twisted way.

_Letter. Handwritten. Squared folded, put inside an envelope._

Neal couldn't let "See you at 4pm, babe" be his last words to Emma. He knew he couldn't possibly explain everything that happened in a letter – or at least, in a letter with less than one thousand pages. But he had to say something, _anything_ to comfort her somehow. So she wouldn't be as lost as he was feeling.

If anything, he only hoped she would understand his handwriting that she always complained about.

"_Dear Emma,_

_I know it sounds too formal, but I can't think of any other way to start this letter. I can't really call you 'babe' as I'm so used to. I don't have this right anymore. So, Emma._

_You will come to understand why I did what I did. I don't think understanding it will make you despise my actions any less, but at least you will know why. It won't happen now, it won't happen anytime soon. It will take years, but you will know why I turned you in to the cops. But what I don't think you will ever understand is how sorry I am for doing that. I won't tell you that my heart aches when I think about you because it won't help you at all. _

_In fact, I'm going to tell you that I'm a bastard that doesn't deserve any of your tears – if you shed any. I'm going to tell you that I'm giving you the money we got from the watches and the yellow bug that was our little home because I don't want to have anything that reminds me of you. That may help you hate me like you should, and live your life without thinking of me as anything other than the asshole who put you in jail._

_We were never meant to be. And you would have left my life sooner or later, because you have a destiny to fulfill. And what is written, will always come to pass, one way or another. I know what I'm saying sounds like a giant pile of crap, but trust me when I tell you that you will understand. Don't trust me on anything else, but trust me on this. I'm just putting you back in the path your meant to be._

_Forget about me. And have a good life._

_But never forget that I __love_ (scribbling over the last word, he muttered to himself "Don't use that verb tense, Cassidy")_ loved you._

_Neal."_

Emma would never understand him. Even if she came to know the whole truth, she would never forgive him for leaving her.

But he had to try one last time. He had to try and help her in any way he could.

Neal tasted bile in the back of his throat when he remembered why he had done this. August could say how many times he wanted that it was the right thing to do, that he was being selfless and helping Emma. But Neal knew the truth – he was being a selfish coward. Emma going to jail had to do with nothing else than his life long journey of never finding his father again. And knowing that he was so close made him even more eager to get the hell out of that country, since he couldn't get out of that _land_.

August grabbed the three items and put them back in the package. As Neal watched him move his mouth without really listening to him talking about how Emma didn't need any of that and how he has done the right thing, his life flashed in front of his eyes. Not all of it, just the moments where he stole time.

From the moment his father became the Dark One to keep him from going into battle to spending more time in Neverland than anyone should, all he had ever done was steal time. And for him, it was as clear as day that all the time he had with Emma was stolen time. Not only the last three weeks, but _all of it_.

He didn't have the right to those moments, those memories, that happiness.

He felt suddenly tired. Not the kind of tiredness that hit him after a long day at work, it wasn't physical weariness. He was emotionally tired, every one of his hundreds of years weighting down on him.

For what it mattered, he was done stealing.

Neal breathed in and out slowly, realizing August had changed the subject to when the curse was broken. In the months after their encounter, Neal would have a vague memory of August telling him he would send a postcard if anything changed.

Slouched down, he shoved his hands inside his pockets. He didn't want to hear any of it anymore. He just wanted to go home and try to find a new way to get over Emma.

"Can you just make sure she gets it all?"


End file.
